Ready to race with world's elite

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Rachel Townsend will run the famous marathon in November 2014. PHOTO/FILE

Runner seizes chance to tackle New York Marathon

The winner of the women's section of the Property Brokers 3 Bridges Marathon has her sights set on joining more than 50,000 runners for one of the world's best-known 42km races next year.

Accounting clerk Rachel Townsend had a great 2013, running in four New Zealand marathons, and her dominant performance on the home course last weekend is setting her up for some hard training over the next 11 months before she joins the world's elite at the New York City Marathon on the first Sunday of November 2014.

The 27-year-old, who is the pride of her "crossfit" training team, received a special invitation to join a group running in the race after making some email contacts at the Rotorua marathon in May.

Sitting in her office at Barlow Lendrum FitzGerald Chartered Accountants, Townsend, who fits work around studying for a business diploma while going for training runs on those quiet nights, received an email telling her there were two spots remaining and she had two minutes to decide if she wanted one of them.

"I leaned back from my desk. I pretty much made the decision then 'I'm in'.

"For weeks and weeks I couldn't believe it, 'I'm going to run New York'.

"It's been on the bucket list forever, even before I was a runner."

Townsend has followed the efforts of Kiwi Olympian Kim Smith, who came sixth in this year's race among 50,304 other finishers.

"You watch them and they're just flat knackered the whole time.

"It's going to be amazing running through the Bronx and Manhattan."

Townsend trains crossfit a recent training phenomenon which involves multiple styles of workouts to build core strength and conditioning with her coaches and friends Matt Rayner, Karli Kaea-Norman, Megan Wallace and Sue Staples.

Staples will be joining her in New York.

"We're a bit of a cult, they would say," Townsend laughed.

"We have a nickname called 'The Goons'."

She intends to run just one big race in 2014 the 50th anniversary of the Rotorua marathon then will focus on a training plan a friend will devise for her.

This year, Townsend ran Rotorua in May, Wellington in June, then Auckland in November before dominating the women's section from start to finish at the 3 Bridges event.

She was thrilled to finish in 3hr 27 min 4sec, and reach her personal goal in front of the people who cared about her the most.

"Rotorua was probably the most fun - the atmosphere and being the first one on the crew home.

"I got faster and faster each time, so I thought it would be great to break the 3:30."

Events worked against her in Auckland where it "all went wrong" and she had to settle for a 3:35 time.

Yet despite last Saturday's warm weather for the 7.30am start on Somme Parade, Townsend had the perfect run to win the women's section by over 12min, while coming fifth overall among the men.

"To break 3:30 was amazing, but to win it and share it with all the crew was brilliant.

"I was so spent, crossing that line, there was nothing left in the tank."

The New York City Marathon is considered the pre-eminent run of the six races that make up the World Marathon majors the others being Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin and Chicago.

With the exception of 2012, it has been run every year since 1970.

It is organised by the New York Road Runners organisation and, because of its popularity, entry is chosen from lottery systems or via nominations from running clubs.